Lone: The Wanderer

Book 1: Chapter 70: Mounting Worries and Daisuke's Pettiness

"If you wish to continue your master-apprentice relationship with Lone Immortus, you must do so at the guild from now on. This is for his own safety," said the man who had knocked upon the door of Grimsleys smithy a little after eighth bell.

Grimsley furrowed his brow. Whatd e do?

The guild employee hesitated for a moment before sighing and saying, He threatened the child of a margrave while in the presence of the child of a duke. Cant say I blame him since they were trying to forcefully buy him.

"'S'at so?" Grimsley asked more rhetorically than seriously.

Regardless, the employee nodded. "Yes. Its rather ridiculous. Hell be living on the residential floor of the guild building now. "

"Hahaha, fookin' helluva cunt, aye?" Grimsley remarked. "Leave it tae Lone tae go an' fookin' put some snobby-arsed pricks barely ootta the womb in their places."

The guild staff member smiled wryly. "Indeed, well, my jobs done here. I have other messages to deliver."

"Aye, off wae ya," Grimsley rudely said as he waved his hand dismissively. "Cheers fae fillin' ma in."

The employee bowed his head politely and then promptly left.

Immediately following, the happy look on Grimsley's face vanished and was replaced with one of raw depression.

He closed the door and made his way over to his new casket of dwarven ale. "Things arnae goin' well wae Shana, an' now Lone's gone an' got 'imself on hoose arrest?... If ah cannae find ah contract mage in the next fortnight, ah may have tae just pack up shop an' flee... 'At damn'd sack ah shite of an 'ero... 'Ow the fuck'd 'e get the bright idea tae start sniffin around the slums?"

"I still don't know nearly enough," Lone complained as he lay there on his bed in his and Soph's room on the residential floor of The Adventurer's Guild.

According to Gilbert, all guilds contained a first floor, a second floor, and a residential floor. The first floor was where most actual operations of the guild commenced.

The second floor was mainly a pub on the front end while the backrooms were where the offices of the more important members were, including the guildmasters study.

The residential floor was on the same level as both the first and second floor, so Lone didnt understand why it had a unique name. Regardless, it usually cost a gold coin a month for accommodations which he and Soph were now privy to free of charge.

Lone was currently staring blankly at the ceiling as he went over his knowledge regarding eyeballs since he had nothing else better to do.

"Don't know enough about what?" the short woman curled up on his chest asked as she rubbed her eyes wearily.

Lone smiled and kissed the top of her head. "About you, you adorable blob of cuteness."

Soph pouted. "I'm not a blob... I'm not getting f-fatter, am I?"

Lone grinned. "So what if you are or ever did? I'd love you all the same, but no, you're not. Sophie is still getting lessons from her swordsmanship instructor, so, if anything, I think you're starting to get some real muscles. The barely-visible but slightly toned kind."

"I-Is that bad?" Soph worried.

Lone laughed. "No. Its nice. Id love you no matter your shape or size."

"O-Oh..." Her face became a blanket of embarrassment.

Seeing that the conversation had ended, Lone returned to his thoughts but kept them private this time as he stroked Soph's golden-blonde locks. 'I can barely recreate the dead eye of a corpse, let alone a perfect one that works. This is going to take me months to do... Either months or I risk it and let the system or whatever the fuck controls my Creation Magic to take full control and fix Soph's eyes for me, but I have no idea if that'll even work... Can it change something's very nature?'

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Lone had no answer to that question, and, honestly, if he wanted one, he feared what he'd have to do to obtain it.

A few minutes of pondering passed before they both heard someone start rapping their knuckles against the door.

"Yes?" Lone asked.

"Guildmaster Gilbert has selected a quest for you to go on with him. Meet him in the main lobby as soon as you possibly can, please."

"Oh, okay, we'll be right out," Lone answered.

"It only took you 10 minutes to get ready?" Gilbert asked as he glanced at Lone's loose and comfortable adventurer gear and then at Sophie's bulky equipment. "That's rather fast for such complex armour."

Lone smiled. "I've gotten good at dressing her."

"He's better at undressing us, though," Sophie teased.

"That, I did not need to know," Gilbert said with a short laugh. "Anyway, we'll be on our way then if you're both prepared?"

Lone nodded. "Yeah, we're good to go. Um, will you be fine in those loose robes?"

Guildmaster Gilbert was draped in a pair of white robes that matched the colour of his horns and his dragon tail. On those robes could be seen many golden runes that certainly looked magical, though Lone had no idea if they were just decorative or if they had any actual effects.

"Ah, these? I'm what the world calls a master mage. In simple terms, that means I have over five skills in a certain school of magic which are all above expert-rank. Are you curious as to what schools?" the handsome man asked with a grin spread across his lips.

Lone, a fanatic of all things magical as evidenced by the fact that he still kept the strange black orb with him wherever he went, quickly nodded. "Absolutely."

"Haha, well, you'll have to wait and see, now won't you? Where's the fun in simply telling you?" Gilbert asked rhetorically. "Anyway, the hope is that I won't have to use any magic during our adventure. On that topic, I chose a quest aimed at C-rankers with no plate restrictions. I've seen you both training and while Sophie is probably more suited to quests for E-ranked adventurers, if you can really teleport as freely as you stated, then you should be just fine," he said as he whispered that last part.

"Awesome," Lone replied excitedly. "So, uh, what's the quest, exactly?"

"We're hunting some Blue Orcs," Gilbert happily answered. "With a bunch more adventurers too."

"Why is he here?" Lone asked as he tried his best to not subconsciously glare at Daisuke Tamiko, Milindo's summoned hero.

Lone, Sophie, and Gilbert, had just arrived at the designated area for the adventurer coalition, which had gathered to wipe out the main camp of the Blue Orcs who had been terrorising the local countryside.

"Because he found the orc's fortress, and because he wants to personally one-up you two. He still thinks that you are responsible for 'stealing' the Manasilk Spider Queen from him. The foolish boy," Gilbert explained.

Daisuke narrowed his eyes upon seeing the guildmaster appear with the foxkin slave and gorgeous white woman roughly his age, by his estimations.

She was short, but she had the refined features of someone in their late teens or early twenties. He idly wondered how she would taste as he listened in on the crowd of adventurers commenting on the group of 3.

"By the Primals, is that the guildmaster? What's he doing here?"

"He's even in his battle robes... I've never seen him in action before... Will we get to see him fight today?"

"Man, I hope not. That'd be... problematic."

"R-Right. Wouldn't want to get outdone by a demi, of all things..."

"Why's he with that other demi and the girl in heavy armour though?"

"Theyre under a protective sanction after offending some noble kids."

"Huh. I did hear the guildmaster was biased towards demis but I try to ignore rumours... Guess even as a guildmaster, he can't help but look out for his own kind."

"I still don't get why our guildmaster is a damned demi... Any human could run the place better than him."

"Right? I got told I was too cruel when I asked for a silver plate promotion exam. What a load of horseshit. He's just being hard on humans."

'Retards,' Daisuke thought. 'It's obvious that he's the guildmaster to uplift the image of demis in Milindo. The grand guildmaster is trying to spread that equality BS that the guild is so proud of.'

Daisuke wasn't really a racist in any regard, no, he just didn't believe in equality. He felt it was a pointless ideal that was impossible to realise so long as people existed.

Back in Japan? Sure. Maybe he was a bit of a xenophobe. Foreigners got all the attention while he was treated as if he didnt exist. Here though he was the foreigner. Here he was the hero with a slave harem.

Why be racist when every species and race had its fair share of beauties for him to conquer?

"Can you all shut the fuck up? I'd like to get this quest over and done with, personally," Daisuke rudely shouted with an arrogant tone to his voice. 'The sooner we're done killing these oversized pigs, the sooner I can get back to Ranton and raid that idiot dwarf's home. I swear to God, if he does have Harem Member Three hidden in that smithy of his, then he'd wish he was dead by the time I'm through with him.'

Gilbert nodded, though a bit unwillingly. "Indeed. I am merely here to observe and keep you all alive or to step in if the chieftain is far stronger than our initial estimates." He then glanced at Daisuke. "I'm also present to make sure no... unfortunate accidents happen."

The Japanese hero shrugged. Its not an accident if its intended.

Lone looked at the supposed heros slaves who seemed to be even more lifeless than when they had last met. The young foxkin girl's tail was clearly missing a lot of its fur, and the elf girl's silky smooth skin had become a bit drier and she seemed... thin. Unnaturally so.

'Is he starving them?' Lone wondered in anger. 'Bastard. They're only kids, for fuck's sake... What a scumbag... I'm really curious what kind of a person he was before he came here... Was he always a sick fuck, or did he become one as he lived here? Sadly, both seem probable.'

Regardless of Lone's upset and revulsion at Daisuke, the quest proceeded.

There were exactly 20 adventurers not including Gilbert, so they decided to split up into groups of 5. Daisuke insisted on being grouped up with Lone and Sophie, and, of course, no one refused him. In fact, some even thanked him for taking the hit of working with a demi, though, to Lone's eyes, these appreciations all seemed a bit... false.

'I've got a bad feeling... Did he group up with us to stealthily betray us or something? But with Gilbert here, that'll never work... What are you up to, you sick fuck?' Lone asked in thought.

Daisuke ignored Lone's inquisitive gaze as he said, "Don't hold me back. These useless meat shields are more than enough already as it is," while pointing at the teenagers in rags following him.

Not waiting for a reply, he led his slaves over the rear wooden barricade of the Blue Orcs fort.

Lone furrowed his brow. Their goal was to flank the chieftain along with another group while the other groups distracted and slowly wiped out the regular Blue Orcs.

"Damn it. I kinda want to just stay here, but I'd feel like fuckin' shit if we let those girls die..." Lone muttered.

Sophie shrugged. "We do not know, perhaps death would be a kinder fate for them."

"Tell that to the you that was chained up in a cave for over a century," Lone retorted.

"Point taken," Sophie replied. "Anyway, let's move quickly. The frontal group is almost upon the largest mana signature."

Lone nodded and then crouched to allow Sophie to step on his cupped hands. With tensed arms and a deep breath, Lone launched Sophie over the wall. Not a moment later, he had jumped over himself very nimbly.

"I was worried you weren't coming," Daisuke said. "I'd have been pissed off if we actually had to fight that thing. Especially since it's enraged."

Lone was confused by the hero's words. He quickly tried to scan his surroundings only to see Daisuke's slaves very hastily slitting the throats of the children and the stomachs of the females who were all cowering submissively in fear. The pair of girls were also filling wooden buckets with the blood and guts that spilt out.

'What's that for? Some sort of blood magic or something? But then why did Daisuke say something so clearly traitorous?' Lone's mind was spinning, and he wasn't sure what to do.

The other group of 5 adventurers were putting their all into dodging or blocking the crazed movements of the 9-foot-tall chieftain who was trying his hardest to make it to his struggling family - to the future of his clan.

Daisuke smirked and then said, "I've been meaning to find a good spot to get rid of those useless sacks of shit. They hardly put out anymore since they're so lifeless, making them deadweight. Well, this is also perfect to get my payback for stealing that spider from me."

The hero's hands moved faster than Lone could react, and before he knew it, both he and Sophie were covered head to toe in Blue Orc guts and blood. Daisuke had swiftly taken the buckets from his slaves and poured their contents over Lone and Sophie.

"I think I'm gonna be sick. What a stench. Well, just so you know, I paid off the other groups to intentionally struggle so that retarded goat will have to help them if he doesn't want them to die. See you in the afterlife, well, if demis go there." Daisuke cast a wistful glance in Sophie's direction before he shook his head and disappeared over the wall.

'... What the fuck just happened?' Lone asked himself as he struggled to keep his lunch in his stomach. He quickly moved to clear his face of the blood and internal organs that were now smeared all over it.

Seeing the hero flee, the 5 adventurers enduring the chieftain's attacks immediately threw a smoke bomb of sorts to the ground and then vanished just as quickly as Daisuke had.

Sophie quickly wiped the gory mess from her helmet's visor, and she wore a frown on her face. "Fight or flight? We can catch that slimy bastard if we so desire."

At that exact moment, the chieftain whipped his head around and saw the brutal mess that was his wives and his children. He had been too late.

He then saw the blood-soaked daggers in the hands of the two slaves and he very soon found himself glaring at the gut-covered Lone and Sophie.

"Graaaaaaaahhhh!" he yelled in fury before he put some strength in his hind legs and began charging towards the 4 of them.

Lone unstrapped the swordspear from his back as he tried his best to stop his hands from violently trembling. "I'll kill that motherfucker. I fucking swear to God, he's fuckin' dead. Dead."

Sophie unsheathed her shortswords and got ready for what was bound to be a difficult battle.